


Cut and Dried

by lost_spook



Category: Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who: Virgin New Adventures - Various Authors, Poirot - Agatha Christie
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-29
Updated: 2010-10-29
Packaged: 2017-10-12 23:04:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/130096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lost_spook/pseuds/lost_spook
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspector Japp's latest suspect has been caught red-handed, but there's definitely something fishy at work - and it's not long before there's a hole in the police station, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cut and Dried

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for JJPOR in an LJ crossover meme.

Inspector Japp considered his latest case and had to heave a sigh. Open and shut, it had seemed at the start, but you didn't get to be at his level in Scotland Yard without getting an instinct for when you were missing a few vital facts. He was half tempted to go and speak to M Poirot, aside from how it didn't do to let him get too puffed up with his own cleverness, and, anyway, he was away at Sir Somebody or other's, on the trail of a nasty blackmailer.

Japp glanced to the ceiling, prayed for patience, and went off to interrogate his chief suspect again.

*

"I don't suppose you're going to change your story," Japp said. "It would help, because, you and I know, Mr Smith, that it doesn't add up, and I'd like a proper explanation from you. I should have thought you'd have been happy to give it, because as it stands, I'd say I've got enough to hang you."

The small, crumpled, rather unlikely criminal, looked up at the police officer. "Yes, I can see it must be awkward for you, Inspector. Sorry about that. The trouble is, it wouldn't help if I _did_ tell you."

"Well, Mr Smith," Japp said, tapping his notepad with his pencil, "I ought to be the judge of that, not you. How about we start with your real name?"

The prisoner looked hurt. "What's wrong with John Smith?"

"Nothing in itself," said the Inspector, "but it's not your proper name, and I don't want any aliases here. Now, real name?"

"Oh, that's neither here nor there."

Japp coughed. "Now, look. This is the situation: I find you inside the bank vault, next to the body of Mr Haverscroft, the late manager, with a bloody great hole on the wall, and another in the safe. You won't explain what you were doing there; you won't give me your proper name. I'd have thought, in the circumstances, you might want to be a little more co-operative."

"Assisting the police with their enquiries?" Smith returned, with a humorous quirk of the mouth. "How quaint."

"Mr Smith, I'd suggest you try and take this seriously."

The other man smiled, suddenly. "Oh, I rarely do that. And it's Doctor. Dr John Smith. Of course, I have had others. When you live as long as I have, one does tend to pick them up and drop them again."

"All right, now how about the bank? Just passing, were you?"

Smith rested his chin on his hands on the table. "I should have thought that was obvious. I was trying to steal something. I've always had a hankering to rob a bank, only, as it turns out, I'm not terribly good at it. I have a feeling it could prove to be handicap, wouldn't you agree?"

Japp glared at him. "You're a right piece of work, you are."

"Ah," said the Doctor. "You know, why _are_ you still talking to me, Inspector? If my guilt is so very obvious, why trouble yourself?"

Japp snapped his pencil, and then put it down in disgust. "No, it _isn't_ , and that's what I wish you'd tell me. If you stabbed Mr Haverscroft, then what did you do with the weapon? What's more, what did you do with the artefact that was stolen, and if you had time to get rid of both of those, what the hell were you doing, still sitting in there when we arrived? On the other hand, nobody turns up in the bank vault in the middle of a robbery if they're not involved in some way. I'm pretty sure I should at least be looking for an accomplice."

"Congratulations, Inspector. You're absolutely right, but I still can't tell you." And he smiled again.

That was what Japp was up against. It was infuriating, and if he didn't get an answer soon, he'd charge the wretched Smith chap with anything going and leave him to it.

*

The Inspector had a related call to make to talk to the remaining bank employees, and by the time he came back from that, there was another wall with a hole in, this time the police station, more specifically the cell in which Dr Smith had been held.

*

It wasn't quite the end, however. Japp had to continue with the case, and in the course of his enquiries, spotted a familiar short figure in a brown jacket, lurking about in the very area where'd he got a tip-off concerning the stolen object.

"Got you," the Inspector said, grabbing the elusive Dr Smith by the shoulder. "Now, Dr Smith -"

The Doctor turned, slipping out of his grip with deceptive ease. "Shh, Inspector. Look over there. There are your thieves."

Japp's jaw dropped as he did, and saw an unlikely green lizard walking about, outside some sort of structure he didn't remember having seen round here before. It looked, he thought, like one of those ships out of some cheap and lurid fiction book. Even as he thought it, it rose directly up into the air above them.

"Good grief," the Inspector muttered, and then: "You let them get away?"

The Doctor smiled, and winked, and then the ship exploded in the night sky, like an impromptu firework display and debris rained about them. "Something like that," he explained, as they hastily dived for cover, followed by two women. "With a little help from my friends. This is Bernice; she's one of those terribly elegant jewel thieves, and Ace – Ace is more into demolition work." He grinned again, and doffed his hat.

"Now, wait, you've still got a lot of explaining to do -"

Bernice gave him a sympathetic smile. "Ignore him, Inspector. He likes to be as annoying and mysterious as possible. Oh, and I'm sorry about your police station, by the way. I was going to see about getting him out with my – ah – my terribly elegant lock-picking abilities and my natural charm, but we decided there wasn't time for that, and it rarely works, anyway."

"Yeah, sorry," added Ace. "At least we got the right cell first try."

The Doctor shook his head. "Come along, you two."

Well, thought Japp, following them, because it wasn't what you called a satisfactory explanation yet, not by a long chalk. The three of them headed into a police box, which was a strange sort of escape route, so he stood back and prepared to wait as long as it took for them to come back out again. He did think to himself that it just went to show there were some crimes that even Poirot wasn't capable of solving. Not that he could tell him about something like this, of course, fun as it would be to stump him for once.

Then yet another impossible thing happened, and the police box disappeared. After that, the Inspector did the only thing he could – went in search of a drink and left thinking about writing his report on this till the morning.


End file.
